All the mail locally is delivered by postal employees driving their own cars. Our mail boxes are all located at the end of the property, by the roadside.The thing is, the cars appear to be unmodified private vehicles, not right-side- steering vehicles like the postal trucks that are made for this purpose. The delivery people drive from the passenger side (so they can reach the mailboxes with their right hand out the passenger side window), reaching over with their left hand to use the steering wheel. I assume the gas and brake are in the usual plac too, althought I haven’t looked to check. This strikes me as a less than safe way to drive. The Post Office can’t possibly be unaware that this goes on, so what gives?
These are contract carriers. They bid on the routes and do use their own vehicles for delivery and provide all their own insurance.
Vehicle configurations vary greatly, some have installed gas, brake and clutch on the passenger side and leave the steering wheel alone, some do the left foot thing and some even import or order cars with the gear on the right hand side of the vehicle.
Regulation rural carriers do it this way too. And the Postal Service knows that they drive like this. If there’s an accident the official line would be ‘we don’t endorse that kind of unsafe driving’ but they know that’s the only way you can do it.
Being that they’re rural routes its not as dangerous as it looks.
Around here the mail carriers never seem to top 30 m.p.h. (and if I’m late and stuck behind one they won’t top 20). Which isn’t really justification, but it’s not as if they’re doing 80 down rural roads.
Hail Ants is correct, almost all rural carriers use their own vehicles. They are paid a per-mile rate to compensate for the use of their vehicle.
There was an “experiment” a while back to offer official USPS vehicles on rural routes. They were assigned to only a few routes, where carriers asked for them and they were available. My ex would love to have an official vehicle and has asked for one, but they say there aren’t any available. Apparently the USPS found that it’s cheaper for them to force the carriers to use their own cars.
Occasionally a carrier will purchase a right-hand drive vehicle to use on the route, but since it’s also their personal vehicle, and other family members would be using it, and there’s a limited selection, most don’t do it. It’s cheaper to try to find a used car with a bench seat so you can slide back and forth on the front seat.
Well, if this kind of driving only occurred in rural areas, I might understand, but this is in a suburban area with heavily travelled roads. Forty years ago it was rural, but not anymore - housing developments and businesses have sprung up everywhere.
The PO’s definition of “rural” basically means the houses are too far apart for a walking mail carrier.
I’d amend that last statement by ratatoskK to be “still rural” - there are “mounted” (where the vehicle pulls up to the roadside mailbox and the carrier puts the mail in) mail routes in suburban/urban areas that use official postal vehicles. My wild guess is that while the area has developed, your post office has not caught up. My husband is a letter carrier for the USPS, not sure if he knows anything about how rural offices might get “upgraded” to include official vehicles, but I’ll check.
OK DeniseV, thanks for checking, but my ex has checked and even wrote a letter to the Postmaster General, and got a very snippy reply back!
What was the snippy reply?
FWIW, local job ads for rural carriers even specify that you must have a vehicle with automatic transmission and bench seat.
acsenray, it was a couple of years ago, but basically it was trying to “establish deniability” re: the possibility of ever offering more vehicles. Our letter to the PO didn’t claim that they did make any such promise; our letter was just inquiring when there would be more and how could we get one. The reply was basically “we never said there would be any more vehicles” with no offer to help, no condolences for the ex having to use a broken-down car, etc.